Koh Lipe, Thailand
There are many ways to get to Koh Lipe from Koh Lanta. You can go by bus to Trang then to the pier by another bus and then a speedboat for an hour and a half (this would take a long time). You could get a ‘speed ferry’ which got some pretty bad reviews and it would have taken around 5 hours. The last and most expensive option was a 2 and a half hour speedboat. After our experience on the speedboats getting to Koh Rong Samloem, I was really worried about the journey. I managed to bargain the price of the boat so that it was similar to the other prices so we opted for the speedboat. The journey was actually direct to Koh Lipe and took around 2 hours. It was much better than expected as the sea was calm.
Koh Lipe is beautiful. It has a similar feel to Koh Phi Phi in some ways as it is a small island with one main walking street where most of the restaurants/shops are. We made our way over to check-in to our hostel and realised our private room was not so private. It was a big 20 person dorm with sort of partition walls leaving a gap at the ceiling. This meant you could hear everything, from the kissing one side of us to drunk people banging the door at 6 am. Luckily, we were only staying here two nights which was enough for us.
We explored the island on the first day and watched the sunset on Sunset Beach (very original name). It was quite busy with everyone there to watch the sunset. The island is a little more expensive than some of the other islands due to it being so small (you can walk from one end to another in 30 minutes). We opted for some pasta in an Italian restaurant for the first night. It was really tasty but the portions were not the biggest so we went to another place after for dessert! In the next restaurant, there was live music and board games. What more can you ask for?!
The next day, we decided to head to the popular Sunrise Beach. This beach was beautiful - white sand and a clear sea. We found a restaurant that had comfortable seating and relaxed there for most of the day. We returned to the restaurant with live music for dinner the next evening, it was good but a little pricy.
We had booked a snorkelling tour for our second full day in Koh Lipe. I had heard that there were a lot of beautiful fish and coral around and we were keen to see some of these a little closer. The tour was amazing. We stopped in a few snorkelling spots and spent the day swimming with all of the different fish and saw lots of coral. Our tour guide was brilliant at spotting some amazing things. This was one of the highlights of the trip for me so far. We spent an hour or so on a beach for lunch which was beautiful as well.
Originally, I had booked a new hostel that was a little more luxurious for four nights but, due to the cost, decided to split it to two nights at a cheaper first hostel (with 18 others) and then two nights at the new hostel. It was such a beautiful place! The staff were really helpful, we had free bikes, free pool access and the place was excellent. It was nice to have a bit of a luxury for a few nights!
After checking in, we ended up going to a sportsbar for dinner and ordered chicken burgers. The chicken was a little on the undercooked side and we were convinced that we would be spending the next few days by the toilets. Fortunately, we were OK but it put me off chicken burgers for a while.
On our last day, we decided to hike up to a viewpoint in the morning and visit the pool in the afternoon. The viewpoint was in a resort area right at the other end of the island and the views were phenomenal. I want to return one day when we are not on so much of a budget. Chris decided to go to a local gym after this while I read by the pool. We ended up watching the sunset again on our last night before returning to the Italian restaurant for another delicious meal.
I really loved Koh Lipe! It is not as hard to get to as I thought but it is a little expensive. It is definitely somewhere I want to return to if I can convince Chris!
